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Poverty Industry
The terms poverty industry or poverty business refer to a wide range of money-making activities that attract a large portion of their business from the poor. Businesses in the poverty industry often include payday loan centers, pawnshops, rent-to-own centers, casinos, liquor stores, lotteries, tobacco stores, credit card companies, and bail-bond services. Illegal ventures such as loansharking might also be included. The poverty industry makes roughly US$33 billion a year in the United States. In 2010, elected American federal officials received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions from poverty-industry donors. In poorer countries, the poverty industry exploits the bottom of the pyramid and its extent can at times be used as a litmus test to assess the effectiveness of poverty-alleviation initiatives. In some cases, the poverty industry directly takes advantage of poverty-alleviation initiatives (e.g. formal, government-supported microfinance). For example, some mon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poverty
Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environment, environmental, legal, social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: ''absolute poverty'' which compares income against the amount needed to meet basic needs, basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and Shelter (building), shelter; secondly, ''relative poverty'' measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. The definition of ''relative poverty'' varies from one country to another, or from one society to another. Statistically, , most of the world's population live in poverty: in Purchasing Power Parity, PPP dollars, 85% of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Payday Loan
A payday loan (also called a payday advance, salary loan, payroll loan, small dollar loan, short term, or cash advance loan) is a short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates. These loans are typically designed to cover immediate financial needs and are intended to be repaid on the borrower's next payday. The term "payday" in payday loan refers to when a borrower writes a postdated check to the lender for the payday salary, but receives part of that payday sum in immediate cash from the lender. However, in common parlance, the concept also applies regardless of whether repayment of loans is linked to a borrower's payday. The loans are also sometimes referred to as " cash advances", though that term can also refer to cash provided against a prearranged line of credit such as a credit card. Legislation regarding payday loans varies widely between different countries, and in federal systems, between different states or provinces. To prevent usury (unre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pawnbroker
A pawnbroker is an individual that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as Collateral (finance), collateral. A pawnbrokering business is called a pawnshop, and while many items can be pawned, pawnshops typically accept jewelry, musical instruments, coins, gold, silver, firearms; as well as home audio equipment, computers, video game systems, televisions, cameras, and power tools being included as the world entered the Information Age. The items ''pawned'' to the broker or shop are themselves called pledge (law), ''pledges'', ''pawns'', or simply ''the collateral''. If an item is pawned for a loan (colloquially "hocked" or "popped"), within a certain contractual period of time the pawner may redeem it for the amount of the loan plus some agreed-upon amount for interest. In the United States the amount of time, and rate of interest, is governed by law and by the state commerce department policies. They have the same license as a bank, which is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rent-to-own
Rent-to-own, also known as rental purchase or rent-to-buy, is a type of legally documented transaction under which tangible property, such as furniture, consumer electronics, motor vehicles, home appliances, engagement rings, and real property, is leased in exchange for a weekly or monthly payment, with the option to purchase at some point during the agreement. A rent-to-own transaction differs from a traditional lease, in that the lessee can purchase the leased item at any time during the agreement (in a traditional lease the lessee has no such right), and from a hire purchase/installment plan, in that the lessee can terminate the agreement by simply returning the property (in a hire purchase the buyer has a limited time, if any, to cancel the agreement). The usage of rent-to-own transactions began in the United Kingdom and Europe, and first appeared in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. While rent-to-own terminology is most commonly associated with consumer goods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loansharking
A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high or illegal interest rates, has strict terms of collection, and generally operates outside the law, often using the threat of violence or other illegal, aggressive, and extortionate actions when seeking to enforce the satisfaction of the debt. As a consistent or repeated illegal business operation or " racket", loansharking is generally associated with organized crime and certain criminal organizations. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot use the legal system to collect such debts, thus they often resort to enforcing repayment by terms of blackmail and threats of violence. Historically, many moneylenders skirted between legal and criminal activity. In the recent western world, loan sharks have been a prominent feature of the criminal underworld. Loan sharking is not to be confused with predatory lending with extremely high interest rates such as payday or title loans, which is s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfinance
Microfinance consists of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses (SMEs) who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings account, savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance product and services in MFI include: # Savings # Microcredit # Microinsurance # Microleasing and # Fund transfer/remittance. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually low income population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient.Peck Christen, Robert; Rosenberg, Richard; Jayadeva, Veena. ''Financial institutions with a double-bottom line: Implications for the future of microfinance''. CGAP, Occasional Papers series, July 2004, pp. 2–3. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution. Microfinance initially had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermediation
An intermediary, also known as a middleman or go-between, is defined differently by context. In law or diplomacy, an intermediary is a third party who offers intermediation services between two parties. In trade or barter, an intermediary acts as a conduit for goods or services offered by a supplier to a consumer, which may include wholesalers, resellers, brokers, and various other services. "Intermediation" refers to a process matching two sides of a market, such as buyers and sellers by a third party such as a broker, agent, or wholesaler. The most common example of intermediation is in the finance industry, where it involves the matching of lenders with borrowers by a bank.''The Theory of Financial Intermediation'' by Franklin Allen and Anthony M. Sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industries (economics)
Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector of an economy, including manufacturing and production of other intermediate or final goods * The general characteristics and production methods common to an industrial society ** Industrialization, the transformation into an industrial society * Industry classification, a classification of economic organizations and activities Places * Industry, Alabama * Industry, California ** Industry station * Industry, Illinois * Industry, Kansas * Industry, Maine * Industry, Missouri * Industry, New York ** Industry, Beaver County, Pennsylvania **Industry, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania * Industry, Texas *Industry Bar, a New York City gay bar *Industry-Rock Falls Township, Phelps County, Nebraska Film and television * ''Made in Canada'' (TV series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
